Joshua Elias Harmon

It may be less well known than the massacres perpetrated by the Nazis, but the secret mass murder by Stalin of more than a dozen prominent Yiddish writers in 1952 surely stands as one of the most horrific crimes against humanity ever committed. This fall, Nathan Englander’s dramatized version of his chilling short story, “The Twenty Seventh Man,” which addresses the killings, comes to the Public Theater. While the cast has not yet been announced, rumors have it that at least one household name will appear in the production.